English has an uncomfortable imperial and colonial connotation in many cultures, making it probably not the best choice, globally.

As long as it's not French, I can understand

Be that English, Spanish, or Mandarin.

I tend to agree. But there's a lot of cultural identity and works connected to languages. I guess the best way would be for everybody in the world to just learn "that one language" as their first foreign language.

can't imagine how much of cultural interaction and otherwise productive hours are lost to learning languages.

Tabarnak. I speak enough Quebecois to get myself into trouble.

my hot take is that all languages should die except for one, preferably English